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comp.lang.ruby

Don't let this happen to Ruby, pleeeeease?

Glenn Smith

2/16/2006 9:48:00 PM

This is quite a good article I just read via a link on artima (I think).

http://www.pyrasun.com/mike/mt/archives/2005/01/09...

I was just thinking as I read it that it has some parallels with how I see
"the ruby community" from the perspective of an "outsider".

I won't elaborate too much, needless to say I just love Ruby, and wish I
could use it in my day-to-day job (right now, any bl**dy programming would
be good!!). I've read quite a bit recently that "Ruby is the next Java",
Java is dying etc. etc. Well good on it. And I think there are some
exceptional people, many on this list, who do a damned good job for selfless
reasons to make it available to others.

It's just that, well, the actual Ruby exposure on the net is a bit weak, to
somebody like me who doesn't have the time to read every mail on the mailing
list. Just simple things like a roadmap of what to expect from Ruby -
what's in the latest release for example, when's the next one, and what's
planned for 1.9? When exactly IS Rite going to be available. Is the new
super-duper website ever going to be finished?

Sorry, bit of a late night rant from somebody who cares...


--

All the best
Glenn
19 Answers

james_b

2/16/2006 10:12:00 PM

0

Glenn Smith wrote:
> This is quite a good article I just read via a link on artima (I think).
>
> http://www.pyrasun.com/mike/mt/archives/2005/01/09...
>
> I was just thinking as I read it that it has some parallels with how I see
> "the ruby community" from the perspective of an "outsider".

I tried reading it, but it went on and on, and seemed basically to
bemoan the Death by Committee of Groovy, a topic of only passing
interest to me.

What is the "this" you fear for Ruby?


>
> I won't elaborate too much, needless to say I just love Ruby, and wish I
> could use it in my day-to-day job (right now, any bl**dy programming would
> be good!!). I've read quite a bit recently that "Ruby is the next Java",
> Java is dying etc. etc. Well good on it. And I think there are some
> exceptional people, many on this list, who do a damned good job for selfless
> reasons to make it available to others.

Quite true.

>
> It's just that, well, the actual Ruby exposure on the net is a bit weak, to
> somebody like me who doesn't have the time to read every mail on the mailing
> list. Just simple things like a roadmap of what to expect from Ruby -

"What to expect"? Why? Seriously. Why not focus on what Ruby does
right now? Unlike Groovy, it's been around for over 12 years.

People interested in the future of Ruby should join the ruby-core
mailing list. Ruby's direction is not a spectator sport.


> what's in the latest release for example, when's the next one, and what's
> planned for 1.9? When exactly IS Rite going to be available. Is the new
> super-duper website ever going to be finished?

Most of this info is available on ruby-lang.org, and in the release
notes and change logs. As for the "super-duper website", well, it will
be done when it's done. Same for Rite.

Ruby work gets done on a Ruby-time schedule. Many devoted volunteers
giving up their time when they can.

"Drivers wanted", as they say.

--
James Britt

http://www.ru... - Ruby Help & Documentation
http://www.artima.c... - The Journal By & For Rubyists
http://www.rub... - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://www.jame... - Playing with Better Toys
http://www.30seco... - Building Better Tools

Alex Combas

2/16/2006 10:52:00 PM

0

On 2/16/06, Glenn Smith <glenn.ruby@gmail.com> wrote:> Sorry, bit of a late night rant from somebody who cares...>I agree, road maps are nice. Are they necessary? I dont think so.I would prefer developers working on code and bug fixes as opposed towriting documentation and to my way of thinking a road map fallsunder documentation.As long as the system is working, and the senior developers have mattersin hand then it doesn't matter to me if they write status reports and road maps.Road maps tend to happen in very large and very well organized projects, I thinkof ones such as FireFox, Openoffice and Eclipse (all of which havegoverning bodys) orwith very small projects where goals are easily defined and reached.However road maps are not always nessisary, I believe the LinuxKernel does not have any road map and afaik no opensource programminglanguage has a published road map.Except maybe perl, but lets not talk about broken promises.What ruby really needs is better documentation! (imo).I believe we currently have tones of docs, and more should always be welcome,but I think we need to work on the quality of our existing docs a lot more.Something I would like to see is an easy way to give back to ruby highlightedin our docs and websites and more unification among all Rubys access pointson the web.The only thing I've been able to think of so far for someone suchas myself to do is to contribute to the rubygarden.org wiki and helpkeep it cleanand up to date, that's my personal goal :) ...as well as perhapsjoining a projectand contributing code, of course.MY PERSONAL GRIPE!Please turn this into a wiki so that we can clean it up:http://www.rubygarden.org/fa... ruby FAQ really really needs some love.Yes, I'm talking to you dblack :)--Alex Combashttp://noodlejunkie.blo...

james_b

2/16/2006 11:06:00 PM

0

Alex Combas wrote:
...
>
> I would prefer developers working on code and bug fixes as opposed to
> writing documentation ...

...

> What ruby really needs is better documentation! (imo).


Who should write the docs, if not the people writing the code?



--
James Britt

http://www.ru... - Ruby Help & Documentation
http://www.artima.c... - The Journal By & For Rubyists

anne001

2/17/2006 12:01:00 PM

0

I think the key of this text is that groovy had a big community making
suggestions, but lacked leadership in terms of structure:

exemple of problems: "The big problem of course was ambiguities -
feature interactions could lead to very confusing errors"

Suggestion for what was needed: "pair up James with someone who is good
at writing specs"
"It's time for someone to take leadership, produce a clear document
showing a
clear vision for Groovy, with a list of features that will be
implemented
and others that will be dropped. With a clear roadmap and precise
deliverables that future users can judge Groovy by and decide whether
it's a
solid project they can rely on or just another aborted open-source
project
they can safely ignore....it takes a real "tech lead" to do this.
Someone who understands the issues but also has a clear vision, sees
the "big picture" and is not afraid to bark a few orders and do things
himself if they don't get done."

As far as I can tell, there has not been this kind of problems with
Ruby. Ruby's center is fairly small and "unambiguous" and the growth
has been lead by libraries based on the core. As James has said, the
language has been around for years even in the US, so I think it is
well past the "immaturity stage" talked about in the article.

dblack

2/17/2006 1:32:00 PM

0

Alex Combas

2/17/2006 11:37:00 PM

0

On 2/17/06, dblack@wobblini.net <dblack@wobblini.net> wrote:> Hi -->> On Fri, 17 Feb 2006, Alex Combas wrote:>> > MY PERSONAL GRIPE!> > Please turn this into a wiki so that we can clean it up:> > http://www.rubygarden.org/faq... > The ruby FAQ really really needs some love.> > Yes, I'm talking to you dblack :)>> I don't think turning something into a wiki is a way to clean it up --> rather the contrary. But a FAQ-updating effort would not be amiss. I> haven't yet thought through exactly how one would organize it.>>Well I hate being contradictory, but I think a wiki-faq would bea great idea. It would require a few key elements, but the goodnews is that all of key elements a wiki-faq would require are alreadyrequired by a regular faq.You or whoever is in control of the current faq can give the documentwhatever structure you like, and write down as manyQ & A as you want, then open it up to the public, other userscan then contribute by asking or answering further questionsfollowing the general structure you've provided.Questions that you dont think are very FAQ'ish can be movedto ruby garden wiki, or just removed altogether.Then you can export a snapshot every couple monthsafter a bit of clean up and post it up at ruby-lang in aprettier format.Why not at least consider it? It could be sort of like beta-faq.--Alex Combashttp://noodlejunkie.blo...

Glenn Smith

2/18/2006 8:49:00 PM

0

Sorry, posted my rant, then disappeared for two days!

Perhaps the problem is more complex but I'm a simpleton, I just want to go
somewhere, download Ruby and start running it. And like most of the world,
I want to do this on Windows.

No, hold on, let me rephrase that - I HAVE to run it on Windows, I really
would prefer to run it on Mac OS/X (but the wife won't let me buy a Mac!)
:o)

So I go to the ruby website and there is the announcement: #Ruby 1.8.4released

Ooh good! I'm happy, a nice new version of Ruby to look at. Maybe I'll use
some of it's new features, maybe I won't, but I'm a "languages fan", I
program for work and play, I like new things. I love Ruby. And so do many
others, and so COULD many more...

Anyway, underneath it says: "The source is
<URL:ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.4.tar.gz><ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.4....,
the md5sum is bd8c2e593e1fa4b01fd98eaf016329bb, and filesize is 4,312,965
bytes."

Well, woopy-doo. I couldn't care less what an md5sum is (I'm only vaguely
aware of what it means, and I've been using and programming PC's over 20
years). Anyway, the link is to a tar.gz file. Which is nice - if I was on
Unix. OK, I could extract it with Winzip - and I'll get... the source code.

I want a windows installer. Somebody else probably wants a Mac installer.
Maybe an RPM for Linux flavour 1, a .DEB for flavour 2 and so on (alright,
the Unix people can just run MAKE if they want). I don't have much recent
knowledge of hacking C, I just wanna use Ruby. And more, I wanna know
what's new in this release.

Where's the "what's new"? Embedded in some text file on an ftp-site
somewhere, or perhaps it's in the tar file. OK, so I know how to go look,
but there isn't anything even in the announcement that tells me to do that.
What if I was a relative-newbie? A youngster looking for a fun-new language
to teach themselves programming?

Am I asking a lot? Well pop over to python.org (and not python.com like I
keep making the mistake of going to!) and it's there - new release plus a
"what's new", same for the previous two releases. Installers for Windows
(32 and 64-bit!), and tar.gz's for everybody else (maybe now Mac's are based
on unix it's easy for them just to run "make"?).

Fair-do's to Curt for his excelent one-click windows installer, but if that
is to be the only simple method for eejits like me (and a million others, no
doubt) then surely this warrants at the very least a mention and a
direct-link on the front-page of ruby-lang.org?

james_b

2/18/2006 9:27:00 PM

0

Glenn Smith wrote:
> Sorry, posted my rant, then disappeared for two days!
>
...
<elided amount='scads' />

>
> Am I asking a lot? Well pop over to python.org (and not python.com like I
> keep making the mistake of going to!) and it's there - new release plus a
> "what's new", same for the previous two releases. Installers for Windows
> (32 and 64-bit!), and tar.gz's for everybody else (maybe now Mac's are based
> on unix it's easy for them just to run "make"?).
>
> Fair-do's to Curt for his excelent one-click windows installer, but if that
> is to be the only simple method for eejits like me (and a million others, no
> doubt) then surely this warrants at the very least a mention and a
> direct-link on the front-page of ruby-lang.org?

There is a redesign underway (modulo the time constraints of Real Life)
of the ruby-lang homepage which, if the various comps are indicative,
should clear up some of these issues by making it easier to find stuff.



--
James Britt

http://www.ru... - Ruby Help & Documentation
http://www.artima.c... - The Journal By & For Rubyists
http://www.rub... - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
http://www.jame... - Playing with Better Toys
http://www.30seco... - Building Better Tools

Glenn Smith

2/18/2006 9:37:00 PM

0

I have seen the mock-ups of the new website - they sure is purrrdee.

I did a google on SCADS - top link is: "*Stamp Collectors against Dodgy
Sellers"

:o)

*


On 18/02/06, James Britt <james_b@neurogami.com> wrote:
>
> Glenn Smith wrote:
> > Sorry, posted my rant, then disappeared for two days!
> >
> ...
> <elided amount='scads' />
>
> >
> > Am I asking a lot? Well pop over to python.org (and not python.com like
> I
> > keep making the mistake of going to!) and it's there - new release plus
> a
> > "what's new", same for the previous two releases. Installers for
> Windows
> > (32 and 64-bit!), and tar.gz's for everybody else (maybe now Mac's are
> based
> > on unix it's easy for them just to run "make"?).
> >
> > Fair-do's to Curt for his excelent one-click windows installer, but if
> that
> > is to be the only simple method for eejits like me (and a million
> others, no
> > doubt) then surely this warrants at the very least a mention and a
> > direct-link on the front-page of ruby-lang.org?
>
> There is a redesign underway (modulo the time constraints of Real Life)
> of the ruby-lang homepage which, if the various comps are indicative,
> should clear up some of these issues by making it easier to find stuff.
>
>
>
> --
> James Britt
>
> http://www.ru... - Ruby Help & Documentation
> http://www.artima.c... - The Journal By & For Rubyists
> http://www.rub... - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
> http://www.jame... - Playing with Better Toys
> http://www.30seco... - Building Better Tools
>
>


--

All the best
Glenn
Aylesbury, UK

David Vallner

2/19/2006 12:34:00 PM

0

Dna Sobota 18 Február 2006 21:48 Glenn Smith napísal:
> Perhaps the problem is more complex but I'm a simpleton, I just want to go
> somewhere, download Ruby and start running it. And like most of the world,
> I want to do this on Windows.
>

Noone's stopping you.

> Anyway, underneath it says: "The source is
> <URL:ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.4.tar.gz><ftp://ft...
>g.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.4.tar.gz>, the md5sum is
> bd8c2e593e1fa4b01fd98eaf016329bb, and filesize is 4,312,965 bytes."
>
> Well, woopy-doo. I couldn't care less what an md5sum is (I'm only vaguely
> aware of what it means, and I've been using and programming PC's over 20
> years).
>

<troll>
Under a fluffy, warm rock?
</troll>



> I want a windows installer. Somebody else probably wants a Mac installer.
> Maybe an RPM for Linux flavour 1, a .DEB for flavour 2 and so on (alright,
> the Unix people can just run MAKE if they want). I don't have much recent
> knowledge of hacking C, I just wanna use Ruby. And more, I wanna know
> what's new in this release.
>

The ruby-lang.org site doesn't maintain binary builds. Big deal. Read on.

> Where's the "what's new"? Embedded in some text file on an ftp-site
> somewhere, or perhaps it's in the tar file. OK, so I know how to go look,
> but there isn't anything even in the announcement that tells me to do that.
> What if I was a relative-newbie? A youngster looking for a fun-new language
> to teach themselves programming?
>

Everyone who's ever given more than fifteen minutes to getting an open source
library to work knows the changelogs are bundled with the download by
convention. And since looking for "what's new" presumes the user has already
had "old" in hand, that's not an issue.

Said youngster is warmly welcome to post to here, comp.lang.ruby, the Ruby
Forum, or the irc channel. He'll probably get all the help he asks for and
then some. Treading forums is a survival ability gained early on in the
programmer's life.

Truth be said, the ruby-lang website could use a minor touchup to somehow draw
attention to the primary form of support for all things Ruby. I have this
mild hallucination of one in the works being mentioned in a recent post
*grin*.

> Am I asking a lot? Well pop over to python.org (and not python.com like I
> keep making the mistake of going to!) and it's there - new release plus a
> "what's new", same for the previous two releases. Installers for Windows
> (32 and 64-bit!), and tar.gz's for everybody else (maybe now Mac's are
> based on unix it's easy for them just to run "make"?).
>

Ahem. Google for "Ruby Installer'. Unsurprisingly, a site hosting a Ruby
installer for windows comes up as the first result. Case closed.

Bottom line: moan less, do more of everything else. The latter actually gets
you somewhere, and saves my brain center for flaming some strain.

David Vallner